


Holding on

by artisan447



Category: Hawaii Five-0 (2010)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Episode 1x24, M/M, Other, Post Season 1, Team
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-05-30
Updated: 2011-06-23
Packaged: 2017-10-19 22:13:56
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 11,094
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/205791
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/artisan447/pseuds/artisan447
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>No one expected things to work out the way they did, and they're all holding on the best they can.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> While I liked much of 1:24, there was a lot about it that didn't make sense to me - like watching half a movie and not having any idea where the ending is headed. But what I did like was the sense of cascading failure -- that everyone's attention was diverted from where it should have been until the final crash. So this story is mostly about dealing with the aftermath of what we saw, in particular Danny's thoughts and feelings about what to do next. Also, fair warning, I like both Rachel and Stan and wouldn't want any harm to come to either of them. :) This story was inspired by Danny-in-Steve's-bed in [](http://iam-space.livejournal.com/profile)[**iam_space**](http://iam-space.livejournal.com/)'s lovely story [It could all end tonight](http://archiveofourown.org/works/202842).
> 
> Many thanks to the crew who pre-read, [**kayim**](http://kayim.dreamwidth.org/) , [**adonnchaid**](http://adonnchaid.dreamwidth.org/) and [](http://ithildyn.livejournal.com/profile)[**ithildyn**](http://ithildyn.livejournal.com/) , and especially [](http://iam-space.livejournal.com/profile)[**iam_space**](http://iam-space.livejournal.com/) for the colourful beta-pen of love. {{hugs}}
> 
> Final note: this story was written at the end of Season 1, so does not take into account any of the events of Season 2.

  
Steve doesn't say much when Danny visits him in jail, which isn't exactly a surprise. He's more a man of action than words and Danny's always talked enough for them both.

In the beginning, most of the time, their conversation goes like this:

"Hey. How're you doing?" Danny says, keeping his voice light and a smile pasted on his face. It might seem weird to anyone else, but Danny's still in 'talk him down' mode. It's not as though being locked in a cage 23 hours out of 24 will put a dent in Steve's seemingly unlimited capacity to do something stupid, after all.

"I'm good. You?" Steve responds, his mouth saying one thing and his eyes something else entirely. Which that, right there, proves that Danny's thinking is justified.

He knows how to read Steve's body language and expressions -- it's pure self-preservation that he's learned to pick the moment when those narrowing eyes cross the line from "I'm bringing you down, asshole" to "okay, that's it, I have a grenade in my pocket" -- so he can see how angry Steve still is, how much the Governor's betrayal hurts, and he's pretty goddamn worried what Steve might do with the limited options available to him if he loses his toenail-grip on control.

So he doesn't say "what the fuck were you thinking you infantile moron" or "I hope your cot has bugs the size of Manhattan", he squashes down his own emotion and confines himself to filling Steve in on what they're doing. He doesn't worry about giving too much away to listening ears -- it's no secret that Danny and Jenna are working to clear Steve's name -- and he's careful to not mention Chin or Kono; he just leaves the right-sized gaps that Steve will get that they're on the case, too. It's not in any way satisfactory, but it's all they have and thirty minutes passes as fast as blinking.

Their progress on the case is glacially slow, but Danny doesn't give up hope. He's wired that way, to try and make the best of something gone bad, and even Rachel's stony silence in the face of his refusal to leave Steve on his own can't break him of the habit. He talks to her once a week and Gracie twice. They're doing okay, better than him, and that's a comfort even if he can't imagine a future where he can fix the pain he's caused them (again). So he puts that aside, too, for now.

Three weeks in and it's not the pitifully small number of words Steve speaks that has the voice inside Danny's head screaming "wrong, wrong, WRONG", it's his total lack of any kind of emotion. Steve's eyes are shuttered, no longer revealing any sign of the crazy Danny's used to, his face stony. It's as though the 47 different emotions he's normally incapable of hiding have been sucked right out of him into a vacuum.

It doesn't help at all that Danny knows Steve's been trained for this -- confinement and solitude -- and to come out the other side mostly intact, because Danny hasn't. It's his own anger and helplessness, which seems to be multiplying and dividing inside him like some kind of mutant animal, that he doesn't know what to do with.

He's not Steve's keeper, his brain's right on board with that, but it doesn't stop him feeling a little responsible for just how fast everything went bad at the end. It's always been his job to make sure that when Steve's wound up, he's pointed in the right direction, and this time his attention was so divided he didn't see the crash coming until it was too late.

They make sure Danny and Jenna are on Steve's visitation list (Kono's under investigation, Chin has a front to keep up and Kamekona has enough sense to not even ask) but by mutual agreement Danny takes the lion's share of the two visits each weekend that Steve's allowed. Somehow they all know he needs to do this. For Steve, for himself, it doesn't really matter. He can see the way solitary is messing with Steve's head and the idea of not going is unthinkable.

Two months in, on a Sunday afternoon everything changes. Danny gets as far as the administrative office and no further.

"Can't sign you in, Detective," the guard says. There aren't that many admin Corrections Officers and most of them know him by now. "McGarrett's not allowed a visit today."

"What?" he asks. What does that even mean? Thirty minutes, twice a weekend. That's the deal.

The guard shrugs. "I only know what it says here, man." He points at the book. "McGarrett. Visitation revoked."

Danny tries to argue, find out more, but that's the extent of the 'available information'. Visitation revoked for a month. He's unreasonably furious when he leaves and is on the phone to Chin before he even gets to the car.

"Find out what the fuck's going on," he says.

Turns out Steve answered back when some asshole CO wouldn't let up digging at him and okay, Danny's kind of pleased by that because he knows exactly how mouthy McGarrett can be when provoked. At least it means he hasn't turned into a total zombie.

His first visit back puts paid to that temporary relief. Danny gets there early, ready to make a scene if he's refused again but it's smooth sailing through Administration and Search and he's already settled into his seat when the door on the other side of the glass opens.

The guard virtually wrestles Steve in, pulling his jumpsuit tight enough around the neck that it looks as though it might strangle him, then shoving him into the chair. Danny's half on his feet and if the glass weren't three inches thick he'd probably go straight through it.

"Hey!" he shouts into the phone, but the guard can't hear and gives no sign that he'd pay attention if he could. He just bends down to unlock Steve's cuffs, says something pointed, and then takes up position at the door.

Danny sits down slowly, looks at Steve hard and waits for him to pick up the phone. Steve has an old bruise high on his temple, a healing scrape on his cheek and his hair is shorn close to his scalp. For the first time he actually _looks_ like a convict and Danny's stomach flips. He waves a hand and points at the receiver, heart pounding in his chest, but Steve just sits rigidly in the crappy metal chair on his side of the glass, stares straight ahead and ignores him. He doesn't even fidget through Danny's increasingly irritated thirty-minute-long monologue.

It's the same thing the next visit, and every one after that, and it doesn't matter what Danny says or does, Steve won't budge. One memorable day Danny even resorts to miming sticking Steve's feet in cement and throwing him in the ocean if he doesn't pick up the phone, but he might as well be flinging stones at a boulder for all the impression he makes.

Chin hears back that Steve's stopped talking to anyone and tried to refuse access visits. But apparently visitation can only be taken away as a punishment, and it's not something an inmate can refuse. Go figure that for an ass-about system. Danny gets that it's probably the only control Steve can exercise, but goddamn it, talking's the only thing Danny has and what's he supposed to do if Steve won't even let him fucking do that?!

On those days, when he goes back to Steve's house -- which is the only place the team has left to use as a base -- it's possible he shouts more than normal.

Kono is usually the one who shouts back, although if Chin's there, Danny can generally provoke him into letting fly with a few choice words, too. Funny how he never knew Chin had a volatile side until now. Danny doesn't give either of them too much grief over it. Kono's still grieving the loss of her badge no matter how well she hides the hurt and she's entitled to be on edge until they get it back. And Danny's still more inclined to want to kiss Chin for putting himself on the inside with HPD, when the rest of them were paralyzed with indecision.

They're slowly but surely building the case to prove Steve's innocence -- with actual real evidence, as Danny keeps reminding everyone -- but it's tedious and painstaking with more wait than hurry-up, and they're not always kind to each other. He couldn't say why he's still surprised that this situation is bringing out the best, and worst, in them all.

They take advantage of what they can. Steve might have enemies, but he has friends, too, and it's not too hard to make sure someone they trust is always near him, even somewhere as forbidding as the Special Needs facility at Halawa. Steve's been there from the beginning -- it's the only facility on the island that can deal with prisoners requiring protective custody -- so it's not so much the other inmates they worry about. It's Steve with too much time on his hands that has Danny in a knot.

They hear snippets of information from Chin's contacts. Steve's eating, he's exercising when allowed but he still won't talk to anyone. Danny sits down and writes a letter, by hand -- PICK UP THE GODDAMN PHONE OR I'LL SHOOT YOU MYSELF -- in big black block letters. He even draws a cartoon Steve with a giant phone at his ear, then stomps down to the post office and mails it.

Rachel phones three nights later, taking him by surprise. "Stan's here," she says. "He wants to try again." Her voice holds all of the hurt and questions she hasn't been able to express, and Danny doesn't know what to say. He sits in the dark for an hour after she hangs up, his mind spinning in ever diminishing circles trying to figure out what it all means, but he's still here in Hawaii, while Rachel, Grace and _Stan_ are in Jersey, so at the end of the day it's pretty fucking obvious what it means.

It's when his letter to Steve comes back the next day -- flap roughly taped and the front stamped "Return to sender. Inappropriate content: threatening remarks" -- that he snaps and puts his fist through the bathroom mirror. It doesn't matter that Steve didn't get the letter, that some nameless faceless bureaucrat with a hard-on for the rules is the only one who's seen it , until the minute he realizes that's exactly why it matters too much.

He puts up with Kono calling him a stupid _haole_ while she cleans up his cut knuckles, but he's suddenly acutely aware that if he doesn't stop trying to hold everything in the way he has been, something big is going to break.

He only stays at the house long enough to pack a bag, and throw the letter at Jenna with a still furious "you deal with him", then he's at the airport without consciously deciding that's where he's going.

The first flight out is to the Big Island. Steve always ribbed him about never making it off Oahu so he thinks "fuck him" and takes a tour of Kilauea. The next few days he spends on the beach, ignoring the increasingly annoyed texts from Kono, and doesn't feel guilty for a minute. He's sitting on a beach for fuck's sake, so there's obviously nothing right in the world. She can just get over it.

When he finally lets himself into his apartment on Saturday afternoon, he's surprised by how musty it smells until he realizes it's weeks since he's been there and he doesn't even think of it as 'home' anymore. That freaks him out sufficiently that he calls Gracie and talks to her for an hour - fuck the bill - then switches off his phone. He spends an uncomfortable night on the pull out and doesn't go back to the house until mid-morning.

He's pretty sure Chin's been tracking him by GPS so he's expecting the worst. What he doesn't expect to see is his letter to Steve blown up to almost human size and hanging from the ceiling in the hall where he'd have to walk through it to get in. Another stick figure with crazy hair has been added, along with a thought bubble filled with "blah, blah, blah, blah, blah", and GO AND SEE HIM scrawled across the top. God he loves his team.

He pulls the poster down and folds it on the bench, then takes his time getting ready. He'll only get thirty minutes with Steve but he still puts on a fresh shirt, a clean tie (he's seen the way Steve's eyes flick to it every single time), and makes sure he doesn't have a hair out of place. It's a ritual, sue him, he's not ashamed to take his comfort where he can.

He's left waiting for ten minutes, seated in the stupid chair on the wrong side of the glass and literally twiddling his thumbs. He picks at the almost-healed scabs on his knuckles and it's all he can do to not scream in frustration. Not because he's bored, but because that's ten minutes less he'll have to catalogue every miniscule movement Steve makes.

He only missed one weekend and a day of visits, but in the private part of his mind he'll admit that he's missed this, that he's relieved when the door on the other side finally snaps open. It's the same routine as any other day: the guard removes the cuffs, tells Steve to sit in the chair, stands in the doorway and doesn't even try to pretend that he won't listen to what they say. Danny couldn't care less if the guard hears every word but Steve's always been a stubborn shit.

Steve hasn't taken his eyes off Danny since he was led into the room and that's different enough from the pattern they'd fallen into, to stop the breath in Danny's chest.

It's the same scratched up bench under his elbows as always, it's the same three inches of glass between them, but everything else is different. It's as though, just for today, Steve's done with rationing himself contact.

Slowly, deliberately Danny leans forward to pick up the phone, and smiles when Steve does the same.

"Hey," he says, holding eye-contact. Part of him is afraid to look away in case this connection is broken and he can't get it back. "How're you doing?"

Steve shrugs, not playing their old game. His eyes are dark, intense, the pupils wide and swallowing up the color so that Danny feels like he might drown in them. Then Steve blinks. Once, twice, his stupidly long lashes standing out in stark relief against the pallor of his skin. After all this time that's the thing that almost makes Danny break; the realisation that Steve is pale. His skin looks translucent under the harsh fluorescent light, and it's wrong, so wrong that Danny doesn't have the words for it, not even in the privacy of his own head.

Steve looks down, picks at the long sleeve of his jumpsuit with a thumbnail, then he looks up and swallows, Adam's apple bobbing hard. "Danny--" he starts, and his voice sounds scratchy, unused. Danny can see the white-knuckled grip he has on the phone and he holds up a hand.

"No," he says with sudden intuition. "Don't talk, it's okay." It's enough that Steve made the effort and Danny's always talked enough for them both, after all.

He sees the gratitude settle on Steve's face and he fills the silence, brings Steve up-to-date on his adventures of the past week, taking a childish delight in the smile that curls the corner of Steve's mouth when he complains about the stupidity of a volcano that can still erupt when it's surrounded by ocean. When the guard calls time and Steve pushes to his feet, giving him one last lingering look before leaving the room, Danny's throat is raw.

He lets his head drop, grinds the heels of his shaking hands into his eyes and tries to take the victory. Steve might not have said anything more than Danny's name -- and didn't that hit like a blow to his chest? -- but he picked up the phone; listened, connected at least that much. Danny pushes his own anger aside. He understands that Steve needs to wrap the important parts of himself up tight and keep them safe so they'll still be there when he gets out, and if this is the only way he can do it then so be it.

He can't quite face the others so he takes a circuitous route back to the house and by the time he gets there, they've all gone. He finds a note from Chin about the last set of forensics from the Governor's residence being in, and a plate of cold pizza with a large 'Eat Me Or Else' sign, unsubtly decorated with a noose, that makes him smile. He's familiar enough with the sharp point of Kono's elbow that he does, in fact, eat a slice while he sorts through Jenna's scratchy hand-written notes.

He's not tired but he crawls into Steve's bed early. It's ironic that he's sleeping better here than at any time since he came to Hawaii, especially considering the ridiculous state of his life. He tells himself that it's the firm mattress, the lack of springs pressing into his back, and the gentle rhythm of waves against sand that lull him into sleep and keep him there. That it has nothing to do with the fact that it's Steve's mattress on Steve's bed in Steve's house that's doing the trick, but he's not really that oblivious.

He falls asleep to the sound of the ocean and the thought that he can still smell Steve on the pillows and sheets.

It's been four months so that's probably not true, but it turns out Danny has parts of himself he needs to wrap up tight and keep safe, too.

*~*~*~*~

[  
](http://www.statcounter.com/)


	2. The more things change

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nothing's the same. Danny's not sure he wants it to be.

*~*~*~*~

 

It's not the sound of the ocean that wakes Danny but the cascading ringtone of his phone. While he fumbles around for the handset, his brain cycles through Steve / Gracie / Rachel / Steve as to who's most likely to be in enough trouble to warrant the early alert.

"What's wrong?" he mutters, and it's Chin's voice that snaps in his ear.

"Danny. You at Steve's?" and then before he can respond: "Get dressed, we're coming over."

He checks the display -- it's 3am -- but with Chin sounding that alert and impatient he doesn't even think of arguing. He just rolls out of bed and grabs whatever clothes are closest.

Their investigation has been four tedious, frustrating, months of one dead end after another, of not being able to do anything more than just rule things out: they've found nothing unusual in the Governor's phone records and finances no matter how far they've gone back, no documentable connection between her and Wo Fat, no contents of the Champ box anywhere in her residence. It doesn't matter how many times Steve said (shouted) that he had no intention of harming the Governor, there's nothing to explain his armed entry into her study -- or, hey, the twin bullets from the gun he was holding, in her chest -- other than the pre-meditated murder with which he's charged. To top it all off, that fucker Wo Fat didn't leave so much as a hair at the scene.

At least the gunshot residue on Steve's gloves can be explained by the fact that he's worn them any number of times on the job and on the range, and they did find the remains of a tazer burn on his neck. But in a case this high-profile where the media and every 'expert' in a thousand mile radius has an opinion -- including that Steve McGarrett has completely lost it -- it all adds up to shit. 'Reasonable doubt' isn't going to cut it, and barring a miracle of virgin-birth-standards they're not seeing a bail application this side of the next millennium. Frankly, the fact that Danny's only put his fist through the bathroom mirror once is a miracle of its own.

The last piece of evidence from the Governor's mansion turns out to be the remnants of a deleted audio file from Steve's phone, and one day Danny wants to meet the forensics tech who pieced together enough of the distorted fragments of sound to get voice prints for both Steve and the Governor.

They stand in the kitchen in whatever clothes they managed to throw on, and the tension's palpable as Chin presses play. There's a broken snatch of both male and female voices that are just identifiable as Steve and the Governor, and then the distortion disappears and there's a loud electronic buzz. It's followed by a sound that could be a body hitting the ground, and then the Governor's panicked voice saying: "What're we going to do? We have to get rid of him."

It's the most beautiful thing Danny's heard in his life.

"The Governor's voice came after the thud, right? She was still alive when Steve went down?" he asks, heart pounding, needing to be sure he didn't mishear.

"Oh, yeah," Chin confirms, and man, can he smile when he's happy. "And that's not all. You know that credit we found in the Governor's account that traced to Hiro Nashimuri? Well, get this, the shell company in the Seychelles he set up also has a history with Wo Fat's import company. It only lasted a short while, 2003 to 2005, but there were enough regular transfers of the same amount as went to the Governor, to point to a Governor-Nashimuri-Wo Fat connection.

Kono and Jenna whoop and swap high fives and Kono slaps Chin hard in the middle of the back.

"Way to go, Cuz!"

It's not flawless but it's finally something tangible that backs up Steve's testimony. They listen to the recording a dozen times trying to identify more, but all they can really get that's crystal clear is the tazer, the thud and the Governor's voice. Danny's not counting his chickens yet.

"HPD has this too? Please tell me they think it's enough?"

Chin nods, still buoyant. "Yeah. The recording explains the tazer burn and provides corroboration that someone else was in the room, and it sounds like Laura Hills' name is mentioned in that distorted bit at the end. It'll need more processing but with the financial evidence it should be enough. We've already started the paperwork for an evidentiary review to drop the primary charge of homicide. That's the only felony on his sheet and if they dismiss intent to harm---"

"I know, I know," Danny interrupts, and finally allows himself to dare to hope. "The unlawful entry will be downgraded to trespass---"

"Which is a class 3 misdemeanor without a custodial requirement!" chimes in Kono, and yeah, that's a sweet, sweet, moment.

"Nice to see you learned something at the Academy," Danny quips, sharing her grin.

Until the minute it slides right off her face.

"Yeah, could have, apparently, learned more," she mutters and turns away, her joy drying up faster than rain on Kilauea.

"Hey!" Danny stops her with a hand on her forearm, surprised to find the muscle hard with tension. She's been so focused, so involved in their work on Steve's case that it's easy to forget she has troubles of her own. "Don't do that. You didn't do anything wrong."

"Danny---"

"No. What did I just say?" He holds her gaze, waiting until he has her full attention. "Look. We're all in this together. We've got your back, okay? And I'm sorry, babe. It's a shitty deal that we had to put Steve first, but you have to know this doesn't end until we get your badge back, too. No matter what."

She nods, and her smile might be a little ragged around the edges but at least it's there. Family. _Ohana_ , they go that extra mile for each other, and Danny Williams will fight for family to his last breath.

"I know," she says, and squeezes his hand. "We'll get there. Working to link the Governor, Wo Fat and the evidence locker money has always been our best bet. It's cool."

Turns out it's Kono's almost-boyfriend, Charlie, who spent the ridiculous number of hours it took to process the audio file -- legally, but mostly on his own time -- and Danny's kind of stunned he didn't know that was going on.

"You've been a bit distracted, brah," Kono says, raised eyebrow speaking volumes.

"Yeah, well, if you don't sleep with that boy in gratitude then I just might," he says, still processing the fact that they're so close to this being over.

"Not with Steve waiting, you won't," she shoots back, and Danny's still saying "What? WHAT?", his face flushed with color, when she disappears out the door. _He_ knows how much there is still to be resolved between him and Steve, he just didn't think he'd have to put up with the _rookie_ telling him.

The others take pity and make him coffee and breakfast and it's while he's eating that he realizes he's not actually going to be able to tell Steve what they have. There's no way the stubborn shit will take a call and it's a full week until visitation.

"Hey," he says. "Wait. We need to get a message to Steve."

"Relax," Chin says, and his face might just be set into a permanent smile. "Mahelona works Mondays. He'll do it."

"Okay," Danny says, but he feels weird. He's been holding himself clenched so tight for so long that the release of pressure leaves him feeling deflated, unsure what to do next.

"Danny." It's Jenna who sits next to him and puts her hand over his on the table. "Breathe, or you're going to stroke out."

"Right," he says and yeah, he does feel dizzy.

"Damn!" He vaguely hears Chin exclaim over the rushing in his ears, and then someone's pulling his chair back and shoving his head between his knees. He hasn't passed out since Katherine shut his fingers in the car door when he was twelve, but he remembers the feeling.

"Here, this'll help."

That's Jenna and he flinches when a cold towel lands on the back of his neck.

"Fuck!" he swears at the dark tile floor. "You call _that_ helpful?"

 

*~*~*~*~

 

It takes five long days for the paperwork to clear the system and the State to approve Steve's release on bail. Then at 3pm on a Friday, in a typical Hawaiian rainstorm, Danny, Jenna and Kono wait and watch as Steve McGarrett walks out the HCF gate with Chin as his escort.

Steve looks pale, but good. His clothes hang loose, and his hair is still way too short, but, God, just the sight of him in the cargoes and t-shirt Danny delivered to replace that fucking awful orange jumpsuit, is the best sight in the world. At least the facial hair that made him look like he'd just stepped out of an episode of The Fugitive is gone so maybe he was listening to Danny's solo rants, after all.

For a second Steve stops and tilts his face up to the rain and it's as though time stretches and slows. Danny's close enough to see the trails of water that stream down his face and neck and the ridiculously long eyelashes that clump together where they fan against his pale cheeks, and he has to curl his hands into tight fists to stop himself reaching out. _Fuck_. This is so not the time for an existential crisis.

He hangs back by the car while Jenna and Kono bounce over like a pair of over-grown puppies, but Steve, the annoying shit, is having none of it and he keeps walking, pulls Danny into a hug as soon as he's close enough.

"Hey, Danno," he says, his voice soft and low at Danny's ear as he wraps his long arms around Danny and pulls him in tight. "How're you doing?"

Danny barks out a strangled laugh at the reference to their old game and lets his head fall into the hollow of Steve's shoulder. He's only human and it's a heady combination, Steve's chest pressed against his, Steve's arms around him, and the scent of Steve and rainwater at the curve of his neck. Danny's next breath stutters to a stop somewhere in the middle of his chest.

"Asshole," he mutters, not even trying for more. He really, really doesn't want to make a fool of himself in public.

They all laugh -- man, it's good to hear that sound out of Steve's mouth -- and suddenly it's a team hug, all five of them wrapped together and holding on.

Eventually, they split up. Kono and Jenna into Kono's car, Chin on his bike, and Danny and Steve into the Camaro.

"See you back at the house, brah, don't get lost!" Kono shouts out the window as she burns out of the parking lot, and Danny and Steve are left staring at each other across the seat-well.

It's weirdly uncomfortable, having Steve back in his car like this and it suddenly feels smaller, like a Matchbox toy he had as a kid, with Steve taking up an inordinate amount of space. Danny doesn't usually have trouble finding words but maybe it's because he has so much to say that he doesn't know where to start. He rests one elbow on the window and taps his fingers on the steering wheel.

"So," he says, staring out the windshield. "You want to stop anywhere on the way back?"

Steve seems tense, too. He's fidgeting; one knee jumping, his eyes skittering across the dash, to the window, and back.

"Maybe go round by the beach?" he asks, and of course that's what he needs -- space, ocean, time to reconnect.

"Your wish is my command." Danny makes an obsequious gesture, trying to lighten the mood.

"Really? Are you seriously making me the princess in this scenario?" Steve's voice is dripping with skepticism, and, yeah, when Danny turns his head, Steve's wearing his incredulous look; the fake one, the one where his eyebrows lift unevenly and he does that weird pouty thing with his mouth. Something tightens and twists in the pit of Danny's stomach, and man, he's like a twelve-year-old on a date, he's that twitchy.

"Well, you know, if the glass slipper fits..." he manages, and then feels the knot unwind a touch when Steve actually meets his eyes and smiles. "It's good to have your stupid face back in my car," Danny says as he shifts into gear and they take off.

"Stupid? Now you're calling me stupid?" Steve retorts, but there's something forced about it, they're both trying too hard and the effort of reaching for their normal banter is almost tangible. It's been too long and even though Danny plays his part, he wants to punch something. Hard.

When they finally make it back to the house (via not one beach but the entire goddamn coast) the others have already set up for a celebration in their normal style -- with beer and grilling out on the lanai.

Steve heads straight through the back door and down to the shore and Danny watches from the deck, hands stuffed into his pockets, as Steve strips down to his boxers and dives under the waves then swims with long, powerful strokes until he's just a speck on the horizon.

"Can't take a seal out its element, hey brah," Chin says behind his shoulder, and Danny can only nod. At that moment he's so full of rage on Steve's behalf at the months he spent locked in a cage that he's afraid to open his mouth for fear of what might come out.

They relax a little over the food. Chin and Kono do most of the work of filling Steve in on their efforts to clear Kono and the search for Wo Fat, because Danny's still off-kilter and Jenna seems happy enough to just watch them all together. By unspoken agreement, they steer away from any conversation about what it was like for Steve inside -- he'll talk about that when he's ready or, knowing Steve, not at all. He is making an effort to relax, to join in the way he normally would, but Danny's not fooled. There's something dark and primal running just under the surface veneer of 'normal' that Steve's projecting and they have, at most, half of his attention. He knows Steve hates the idea, but Danny's kind of glad the Navy has a review of his reserve status -- including a psych assessment -- slated for a week from today.

It's after ten when Steve yawns and blinks a couple of times. Then he looks over from where he's arranged himself in a deck chair, frowns, and asks Danny why he hasn't gone to get Grace.

"It's your weekend, isn't it?" he asks after a beat, when Danny just stares.

"Wait. That's what you kept track of? My weekend to have Grace?" If Danny felt off before, it's nothing to what he feels now.

"Well, yeah."

When the silence draws out, Steve has the grace to look a little sheepish. "It's a thing, okay?" he says.

"Okay?" Danny repeats. "Is it _okay_? Well, I don't know, I guess it depends on what you mean by it's a 'thing'? Have you turned into some kind of crazy stalker-person, you know what I'm doing every day?"

"No, it's just ..." He's fidgeting again and Danny knows for sure something weird's coming next. "It's a tactic for long-term incarceration, all right? To, you know, stay connected to the world. Not get lost in your own head."

Danny can feel his brain misfiring because as far as fucked-up thinking goes that takes the cake. "So you ... what? Memorized my schedule just in case this happened?"

"Yours, yeah, Kono's and Chin's, too. It's a habit." He shrugs, as though it's possible to make that sound even half-way reasonable. "Kamekona's no good -- his life's more like a random series of events connected by meals -- but you're easy, Danny; you're pretty anal when it comes to schedules and time."

Okay, so -- what the ever-loving fuck? Steve brings the crazy like no-one he's ever met, but sometimes, _sometimes like now_ , when he gets a glimpse of exactly what his life must have been like before 5-O as one of the US Military's finest, it's seriously frigging scary. He takes refuge in irritation, because that's not something anyone will question.

"Okay, you know what? Most people would call that _reliable_ , not anal. And for the record, I would be _reliable_ because --one--" he counts them off on his fingers, "--a schedule is required to coordinate access to my daughter, with whom I only get 400 hours of real time a year, and --two-- any hint of a deviation from said schedule, by so much as a minute, has ramifications; lawyerly-type ramifications, wherein Rachel and I wind up only talking to each other through goddamn voicemail. And --three-- I get this from you? The man whose life runs to the most precise Navy-ingrained-schedule known to man? A schedule that Swiss watch makers probably have pinned to their walls to set their crystals by? That is so much pot calling kettle black, my friend."

Steve's at least grinning by the time Danny finishes, so they're past the tension, but in typical Steve-fashion he hasn't been diverted the slightest. "Yeah, well you still didn't answer my question."

"Oh really? You mean there was a question in there somewhere?"

Steve rolls his eyes. "Gracie. How come you don't have Gracie this weekend?" It's concern now that's painted on his face, and that's just so like Steve to be worrying about his access arrangements that Danny can't do anything but tell the truth no matter how much he'd really rather not.

"I don't have Grace this weekend, because she's not here. She's in Jersey with her mother," he snaps.

"Rachel took her to see her grandparents? Okay, well that's good?" Steve nods and looks relieved but it's more a question than a statement and Danny feels hot, then cold. He has to tell Steve what's going on with him and Rachel, has known this moment was coming, but it feels like a great yawning pit has opened under his feet.

"Actually, no. Not so much. And can we just not talk about this right now?" It's a cop-out and he's only putting off the inevitable, but he knows Steve won't push if he hints at trouble between him and Rachel. And, besides, is it so wrong to want at least five minutes of happy times?

"You look beat," Chin interrupts, looking at Steve. "Why don't you go crash. We'll clean up here."

Danny wants to hug him.

"Yeah, okay, it's been a day." Steve is surprisingly compliant then he looks to Danny, "You should stay."

They told him Danny's been staying at the house, so it's a reasonable offer and it would be stupid to refuse, plus Steve's looking blurry enough around the edges with fatigue that Danny wouldn't feel right leaving him on his own.

"Okay," he says, resolutely not watching as Steve hauls himself out of the chair and heads inside. He's already catalogued the changes, could probably guess within a pound or two exactly how much weight Steve's lost, and he'll probably be drifting into stalker territory himself, soon, if he doesn't stop watching so closely.

The silence draws out, and he looks up to find the others all watching him just as closely.

"What?" he snaps, irritated.

"He won't be put off for long, brah," Chin says, and Danny feels the fight drain out of him, the weight of his silent deception settling in the pit of his stomach.

"Yeah," he replies, pinching the bridge of his nose in a useless attempt to relieve the tension. "I know."

 

*~*~*~*~

 

The thing is, Steve doesn't ask again. Anyone can see he's strung tight as a wire, no matter how much he tries to hide it behind working out, routine, and his stupid I'm-fine-Danno-faces, but he doesn't ask Danny about Rachel and Grace. Not once. And yeah, that raises a flag all on its own. Steve never has been able to keep his nose out of Danny's business, so it's hard to know why he's gone silent. It's almost as though he's avoiding the subject because he knows he won't like the answer.

Danny doesn't bring it up himself because he still hasn't figured out what to say beyond: "Hey, I got my ex-wife pregnant and was about to run out on you all while you weren't looking. Sorry."

He sleeps in the spare room and the next few days pass slowly while they tiptoe around each other.

Steve stocks the fridge with salad and fresh vegetables, organic beef and free-range chicken, but even though he appears to enjoy the routine of making them both meals, he can't seem to do more than just pick at his own. He's restless and constantly in motion, as though there's something running under his skin that only movement can relieve, and Danny would be surprised if he's sleeping at all, even though he disappears into his room every night, right on schedule. He's always up and out swimming or running by the time Danny gets up and the dark circles under his eyes aren't going away.

Danny doesn't try and make him talk about what's going on in his head -- he's not that brave -- and it's a ten-to-one bet Steve'll cut him off completely if he feels like he's being backed into a corner. He's already flat out refused to talk to a professional other than the one the Navy has lined up, and besides, for now at least, he seems content to have Danny around, in his space, and it's hard to want to jeopardize that.

Until the morning Danny comes downstairs early to find Steve making himself an elaborate breakfast of fruit, cereal, juice and some kind of complicated vegetable frittata thing.

"You going to actually eat some of that today?" he asks without stopping to engage the filter between his brain and his mouth. He's tired; the frustrations of an investigation going nowhere have been keeping him awake, and everyone has their breaking point.

"Oh? And that's your business how?"

"It's my business when you don't eat enough to keep a sparrow alive let alone a full grown adult man," he says.

"I eat, and besides, since when did you become my mother?" Steve snaps, jabbing at the frittata with more force than necessary.

"Since you did something so incredibly stupid that you got yourself locked in a jail cell for four months," Danny shouts back. And wow, he should have known that was in there just waiting for a chance to come out.

Steve just gives him a wounded look, drops the spatula in the sink and leaves without answering back. Danny stares at the untouched pineapple and mango, and the egg mix going black in the pan, and wonders if he can go back to bed and try that again.

They're still trying to track Wo Fat's movements -- surprisingly, Sang Min's been helpful there -- but then one afternoon, when Danny gets home from following up what turns out to be yet another dead end, he finds Steve dressed in black assembling his back-up weapon at the dining room table.

"Whoa," he says. "What the hell do you think you're doing?"

"Sang Min isn't telling you everything; he's playing you. I just need five minutes with him."

"What? Dressed like that? As though you just stepped out of the latest remake of Ninja Assassin?"

"I've been sitting on my hands for four fucking days, Danny." Steve pushes home a clip and reaches behind him to slip his gun into the holster he presumably has at the small of his back.

Danny doesn't pull out his own gun and shoot him, although it's a near thing. "Yes, and that's exactly what you're going to keep doing if I have to cuff you to the goddamn chair myself! So. You -- Sit."

Steve doesn't sit, but he does at least stop what he's doing. He braces his hands on the table and lets his head hang. His knuckles are white with tension, but at least the headlong rush into disaster seems to have been averted. Danny counts it a victory.

"All right. Now you listen and you listen good," he says, and he steps up close behind Steve, trying to use his voice and proximity to press his authority, because he knows Steve, knows that if you can work on his trained response to command then you're more than half way there. "It may have escaped your notice, but you are no longer the benevolent dictator around here. You already fucked up beyond belief just because we stopped looking at you for five minutes, and you do not. DO NOT. Get to do that again. We -- Kono, Jenna, Chin and I -- have your back but there's a limit to how much of your shit we'll put up with. And you'd better believe me when I tell you that right now you are about to step so far over the line of what's tolerable it's not funny. Have you conveniently forgotten that you're out of prison on _bail?_ And that if you take one step out of this house with those weapons in your possession you'll end up straight back in there, behind a door without a goddamn key?"He's shouting now, any semblance of control well and truly gone. "I am not going to be the one to phone your sister and tell her you're in jail, _again_."

Steve visibly sags at the mention of Mary, and Danny can literally see him go from DEFCON 1 to 4 before his very eyes, which is only a relief for the three-and-a-half seconds it takes him to realize that Steve's hands are shaking. It's probably just the adrenaline release but Danny knows how screwed up Steve's head is and it hits him like a jolt, the urge to touch, to soothe Steve like he would any over-wrought creature. But he forces himself to hold his ground and fold his arms across his chest because he knows that touching Steve right now would probably have the same kind of disastrous results as wrapping his hand around a live electric wire.

"Steve," he says, swallowing down his own unease and lightening his voice to something more reasonable. "Tell me what's going on."

"Nothing," Steve bites out. He jerks away from the table and paces to the other side of the room, then back.

"Steve," Danny snaps out again. He's worried enough that he takes a step to physically put himself between Steve and the front door. "Talk to me, babe."

At least that has an effect. Steve finally stops pacing and presses the heels of both hands into his eye sockets. But it doesn't feel like a victory. When he finally meets Danny's eyes he seems haunted - frustration, anger and impotence all swirling together into an emotion so tangible it fills the space between them.

"No. You're right. I don't know what I was thinking," he says, and _fuck_ if he isn't shutting down right before Danny's eyes. The gun, then a knife hit the table with a thud. "I'm sorry. This was a stupid idea."

Danny feels completely wrong-footed by the change in direction. Steve apologizing is just as freaking scary as if he'd held his ground. "Hey, not stupid, maybe just a little under-thought," he says, feeling his way, heart pounding. "Now, let's say you were thinking of helping me go over the testimony Sang Min's given us, see what we've missed, _that_ I could get on board with."

Steve's clearly making an effort to pull himself back to what passes for normal, but it's just a veneer, pasting over the cracks _again_. ""Yeah, okay," he says, "maybe after a swim," and he's already headed for the back door, pulling his shirt off as he goes.

"Sure," Danny shouts at his retreating back. "You go cavort with the dolphins and leave me here to do all the work!"

But Steve's already gone, and Danny sags into the nearest chair, unsurprised to find his own hands are shaking.

He's not a stupid man, or unaware of the nature of the building tension between himself and Steve. Or what an incredibly bad idea it would be to act on that right now.

He does know that of all the people in all of Hawaii he would have to be the least well equipped to deal with a strung-out SEAL. He hasn't the faintest fucking clue what he's doing.

 

*~*~*~*~

 

It's almost dark when Steve finally drags himself back into the house. Danny's been on the phone to Chin twice and the only thing that stopped him sending out a fucking rescue chopper is the fact he doesn't have Search101 on his speed-dial.

"Jesus, you jerk, what did you do, huh? Swim to fucking Maui and back?" he demands.

Steve looks exhausted, but Danny's imagined him drowned, eaten, speared by a wayward fisherman, or disoriented and still swimming -- by now half way to goddamn Australia -- so he's half tempted to punch him in the mouth, anyway.

Steve's at least pulled on dry shorts, but his hair is wet and his chest is bare. "Maui? Danny, that's more than a hundred miles. I'd need a helicopter to get there and back in two hours," he drawls and _fuck_ if he doesn't sound as though he's just been out for a casual afternoon stroll.

"See? This is my point, exactly," Danny snaps. "Two hours. You were out there, in the goddamn ocean, for two whole hours. Did it not cross your tiny mind that someone might think you were, I don't know... eaten by a shark or something?"

"Someone meaning you?" Steve raises an eyebrow as he towels off his hair, still casual, and Danny's blood pressure shoots through the roof.

"Yes, 'someone meaning me'! Two whole fucking hours, Steven!" he shouts. He hasn't missed this at all; the way Steve can provoke a reaction from him without hardly raising a finger. He's so close to physical violence that he has to stop and suck in a breath, then turn away. "Never mind. I don't know why I even bother."

Steve must register that Danny's been genuinely worried, because when he speaks he sounds at least a little contrite. "Hey, wait, Danny. C'mon, man, I'm fine. See?" Danny turns around to see him with his arms spread wide, looking ridiculously innocent.

"You are so not fine," he snaps back. "There is nothing fine about you. You and your..." He waves a hand in the direction of Steve's annoying-as-all-hell shorts-clad manliness.

"Really? That's what you're going with, me and my.... ?" It's so stupid, and so close to their usual banter that Danny's speechless. In fact the whole exchange is so ridiculous he just ... deflates.

"I hate you, you know that?" he says. "So much."

But Steve doesn't bite back the way he normally would, instead the muscle in his jaw jumps and he finally mutters: "Yeah, well, I'm not liking you all that much right now, either."

What the hell? After everything Danny's put up with, _that's_ what he gets back? Any shred of caution he's been nursing when it comes to handling Steve well and truly evaporates.

"Oh? Did you say _you're_ not liking _me_ right now?" he asks, incredulous. "Well, I can leave if that's what you want?" He gestures toward the doorway with both hands, daring Steve to tell him to go.

"If _I_ want? Well, how about what you want? It's not like you didn't think about it before." Now it's Steve's turn to shout, and the big vein in his neck that pops out when he's agitated is definitely doing its thing.

"Okay, you know what? You do not get to make this about me."

"Why not? You were leaving. Going to Jersey. Don't pretend you weren't, Chin told me the first day I came home!"

Danny's eyebrows are up in his hairline, he can feel it, as the pieces of Steve's behavior fall into place. "Chin told you?" he shouts back. "Well, Chin has a goddamn big mouth, and for your information, I was coming back!"

"Coming back? Oh, really. And why would you do that, Danny? Why would you come back? Your wife -- your _pregnant_ wife who wants you back -- and your daughter, and your _whole goddamn family_ are in Jersey. It's everything you ever wanted. Why the hell would you come back here? You _hate_ Hawaii."

In one corner of his brain Danny knows that this is good -- that Steve knows about him and Rachel and that he's shouting, actually getting angry and letting it all out rather than behaving like the pre-programmed automaton he's resembled for the last four days. For the most part, though, he's just incredibly furious. And finally feeling all of the hurt and uncertainty he's had squashed into the deal-with-it-later box inside his head.

"I don't _hate_ Hawaii. And for the record, _asshole_ , Rachel doesn't want me back any more, either." He's shaking, he's that angry and he backs up against the table and grips it hard with both hands.

You could hear a pin drop in the silence that follows his revelation.

"What are you talking about?" Steve eventually asks and he sounds confused.

 _Yeah, well, welcome to my fucking life_ , Danny thinks as the silence draws out. Confusion's become a normal state of affairs for him.

"I had no time to decide," he finally says. "I knew you were going after the Governor so I was on my way there because that was always going to end in disaster. Then Rachel phoned from the airport and ... _Fuck!_ " It's painful, reliving that moment and he lets his head drop. "I didn't turn around. All I could think about was what you were about to do, and that Kono needed help, and Chin -- I had no idea what the hell Chin was up to -- so I kept going to the Governor's. I knew Rachel and Grace would be okay, that they'd get on the plane and be fine. Hell, I half hoped that Rachel wouldn't leave if I didn't show."

He's replayed that moment a thousand times in his head and he still couldn't say, given the time again, that he'd do anything different. He's so immersed in the memory that it's a surprise to feel Steve's hand land, warm and solid, on the back of his neck. "I'm sorry, man," Steve says, and his voice is low and rough.

"Yeah, well there's no point being sorry. It's done now." He huffs out a pained laugh. "I should've known nothing would slow Rachel down, she's one focused woman once she makes up her mind. She wouldn't speak to me for weeks and I don't blame her."

"So what are you going to do? Can't you just go and tell her you made a mistake?"

"Oh, sure, and just like that it'll all be better? Don't be a dick." There's no heat in his words, though. He feels like he's the one who just swam to Maui and back and he has no energy for pretence any more. "Beside as it turns out, I don't think I did make a mistake. Stan's with her now and it seems he's willing to do what I never was -- change his job to spend more time with her and Gracie. I want them to be happy, Steve, and no matter how much I didn't want to, I really hurt Rachel this time. I've tried to explain and I think she understands, to a point, but I've finally realized that I can't change the way she needs me to. It's better if I just stay away."

"Danny. Gracie and the baby---"

"Don't!" he snaps out, holding up his hand as though he can physically stop Steve speaking. "Just--- don't. It's my own fault. I _made_ this mess. I can't even pretend I didn't know what I was doing when I slept with Rachel, because I did. I mean I didn't know she'd get pregnant, but complicated? I guess you're not the only one who can be incredibly stupid -- this had disaster written all over it right from the start."

"So why'd you do it?" Steve asks, matter-of-fact, as though that level of crazy is something he can relate to. And yeah, well, it turns out Danny Williams is basically no different to any other man -- he's not above reaching for the dream when it's offered.

"You know how I was after Matty left, I just--- I felt like my heart was yanked out through my ribs and I went to the house. I needed to see Gracie, and Stan was away. Rachel -- she started talking about how bad things were between her and Stan, how he was always away and how they'd been sleeping in separate rooms for months and I dunno, it felt good. Rachel wanted _me_ not frigging Stan, and you know -- I never stopped thinking of her as my wife. I couldn't say no."

"I didn't know things were that bad with them," Steve's thumb is tracing a soothing path up and down Danny's neck, but the words make him bristle.

"What? You think I would've slept with her if she was still with Stan? Jesus, what do you take me for?"

"Danno. I get it. It's okay." Steve's hand grips his neck hard, and it's like Steve's trying to literally press some understanding into him.

"Yeah, well, it's not okay but it is what it is, and when it came right down to it, I wasn't there for her and Gracie. What does it say about me that I completely forgot I was supposed to meet them at the airport until it was too late?"

Danny's voice breaks on the last word and his throat closes up completely. He's been trying so hard to keep a wall up between his tumultuous feelings about Rachel and Grace and the new baby, and everything he needs to do for Steve and Kono and the team, but in the end it doesn't take anything more than just saying it out loud to bring it all crashing down. It's lucky that Steve has a grip on the back of his neck the way he does, or he'd probably go to his knees with the weight of it.

Steve makes a sound low in his throat that's maybe understanding, maybe something else, and tugs Danny forward against his chest, his hand warm and solid at the nape of Danny's neck. Danny wouldn't care if it stayed right there forever, where he can feel the reassuring weight of it all the way down to the bone.

"I think it says you couldn't be in two places at once," Steve murmurs, his other hand coming around Danny's back, pulling him further into the full-body-meld that's the only kind of hug Steve knows how to give. "And that you had something to do you thought was important."

"Yeah," Danny manages to croak out, holding on, his arms finding their natural place around Steve's back. It's good, comfortable, and he feels like he belongs there. But before he can think about what that means, Steve's speaking again.

"Kono said you stayed here the whole time I was inside," he says and it's not hard to hear the question.

"Well, we were working here," he hedges. "It made sense."

"You slept in my bed." Okay and Kono's on his shit-list now, too. She and Chin ought to keep their meddling noses out of his life.

"All right," he finally concedes, feeling the color spread up his neck. "Yes, I did. It's a thing, okay?"

"What kind of a thing, Danno?" Steve's voice is a low, soft murmur, right near his ear and it sends a shiver down his spine. Steve's bare back is warm under his hands, and Danny has the absurd thought that if he wanted to, he could just turn his head and lick the skin, right there, at the base of Steve's throat.

"Shut up," he murmurs, and leans back a little, his heart pounding as he thinks _fuck we're really doing this now_. It's the last coherent thought he has before Steve's hand slides up into his hair, cups the back of his head and then somehow, Steve's lips are soft and insistent on his.

It's amazing, _incredible_ to feel the heat and pressure of Steve's body as he presses against him, to be the sole focus of Steve's intensity, and pure _want_ floods through him. He opens his mouth to tangle his tongue with Steve's and it's as though every cell in his body has been waiting for this, craving it, and is delighting in tasting the essence of him. He can't help the groan that works its way out of the back of his throat into Steve's open mouth.

When he finally wrenches his mouth away to suck in a breath he's light headed. His skin feels stretched too tight, every pulse-point pounding. It takes a while for his mind to clear enough to understand that Steve's murmuring, "It'll be okay, Danny," and, "We'll fix this," in a fiery trail down the side of his neck, and isn't that just like Steve to want to fix everything?

"Okay," he gasps, tilting his head for better access, groaning again when Steve pushes his collar aside and sucks a bruise into the soft skin just below his collar bone. He wants so badly to believe it's possible, that maybe there is a way that they can all somehow be happy, that he can have it all.

"Okay." He lets himself fall into the sensation, shuts off his mind to anything other than this place and this moment, and gives in to the pressure of Steve's mouth and hands and body.

 

*~*~*~*~

 

It's dark when he wakes up to movement and the feel of Steve sliding back into the bed.

"Go back to sleep," Steve says, quiet, as he presses in behind him.

"What's wrong," he mumbles, leaning back into Steve's body, tangling their legs.

"It's nothing." Steve wraps an arm around his waist and twines their fingers together. "Talk about it in the morning."

Danny feels groggy, he hasn't slept much in the last few weeks, so he doesn't argue. "Feels good," he says, at the soft sweep of Steve's thumb against the inside of his wrist.

"Go to sleep," Steve murmurs again, his mouth curving into a smile against the tender skin of Danny's nape.

He falls asleep to the rhythm of Steve's chest expanding and contracting against his back and the quiet exhale of Steve's breath against his neck.

 

*~*~*~*~

 

In the morning he comes downstairs to find Steve at the dining table, reading the paper and cradling a cup of coffee, the remnants of what looks to have been an enormous breakfast around him.

"Oh, so _now_ you're eating?" he digs as he walks up behind Steve, wraps his arms around his shoulders and leans in to inhale the scent of sea and salt at the angle of his neck. It's still new enough -- being able to touch -- that he's not quite sure where to put his hands. So he settles for tucking one around Steve's ribcage and drapes the other over his shoulder.

Steve tilts his head back, loose and relaxed, and there's a smile playing around his mouth. "I was hungry," he shrugs.

"The man is hungry," Danny grins, his heart swelling with affection. He leans in, tilting Steve's jaw so that their mouths meet just right.

"So. What were you doing up in the middle of the night?" he asks when they finally break apart.

"You slept right through your phone. I answered it, that's all." Okay, and that's feigned nonchalance if ever he's seen it, Danny's spidey-senses start to tingle.

"Oh?" he queries, leaning back, trying to make Steve meet his eyes. "And are you going to tell me who this mysterious middle-of-the-night caller was?"

"Yeah, but after you sit down, so you don't freak." Steve's too relaxed for it to be anything bad, but Danny's not stupid. Call it one too many instances of having to deal with the tragic outcome of Steve's 'it'll be fine's.

"Okay, and that's supposed to be reassuring, how?" he asks, but he does pull out a chair and sit down.

"Well, it was Gracie and, before you go off half-cocked, it's good news. Well, I think it's good---."

Sitting down was a dumb idea because he's already up and speaking before Steve finishes. "My daughter calls me from the other side of the country at 2am and that can somehow be good? Tell me how that can be good. And then tell me, also, what possible reason you might have had for not waking me up so that I could talk to her?"

It's Steve's turn to roll his eyes now, and he puts his coffee down and half-turns so that he's facing Danny. "It's good, Danny, because it wasn't 2am there, and she was too excited to wait any longer to tell you they're coming back to Hawaii. And I didn't wake you because she was sneaking the call in before she went to school, and couldn't wait."

Danny's stunned. He doesn't know what to say. He can feel himself staring but he can't help that, either. He plonks his ass down in the chair but Steve's no help at all, he just sits there, grinning like a total loon.

"They're coming here? To Hawaii?" he finally manages. "Steven, what did she _say_?"

"Danny, she was too excited to make much sense, but it was something about Stan's new job. You'll have to phone Rachel back to get the full story."

He makes the call, and it seems that Karma isn't done messing with him yet because Rachel's out and it's Stan who answers. He spends an uncomfortable two-and-a-half minutes dragging some answers out of the man and trying to be polite.

"Jesus," he says as he hangs up and slumps in the nearest chair. "It was much easier talking to him when I held the moral high ground."

Steve's been hovering the whole time, listening to the sparse one-sided conversation, and now he crouches in front of Danny. "And?" he prompts. There's a worried frown creasing his forehead and Danny wants to smooth it away with his thumb.

"Yeah, it's true, babe," he says. "Stan's old company won the contract for the new commercial development at Kapolei and they want a local Executive Manager. They'll be back here as soon as they get everything organized."

He's almost stopped believing in good things, but this -- this is definitely good. "And you know what's even better," he says and now he can't stop the stupid grin that spreads over his face. "Stan said Rachel thinks the baby should know its father. He wasn't happy about it, and I think he was trying to warn me not to fuck up or something, but that's what he said."

Him. Danny. He's going to be a father again. Now that he actually lets himself take that in, it's like being hit by a truck. A _good_ truck. He grabs hold of Steve's face with both hands and plants a big wet sloppy kiss right on his mouth. "You, my friend," he says, poking a finger in Steve's chest, "are going to be living with the world's best dad!"

Steve just throws his head back and laughs, and seriously, it's not that funny. Danny pokes him in the chest again to get him to shut up, but Steve just sits back on his ass and laughs harder.

In the end Danny can't do anything else but join in too, and he's actually okay with that because, yeah, he probably deserves a little ridicule. And when it comes in this kind of a package? He's totally up for it.

 

\--the end--

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted on livejournal: [Holding on](http://ms-artisan.livejournal.com/114543.html) & [The more things change](http://ms-artisan.livejournal.com/115834.html)


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